90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Suspect Identified in the Stabbing of Brianna Kupfer, Out on $1k Bail

A suspect has been identified in the murder of 24-year-old UCLA design student Brianna Kupfer: 31-year-old Shawn Laval Smith.

A $250,000 reward has been offered for the capture of Smith, who police consider armed and dangerous. He will likely be using public transit.

According to Los Angeles County records, Smith had a criminal record and was free on a $1,000 bail from an October 2020 misdemeanor arrest. Per the Daily Mail:

Los Angles County Sheriff’s Department records list Smith as currently free on a $1,000 bail from a misdemeanor arrest in October 2020.

The nature of the charge wasn’t immediately clear, and it was unclear why the case was still unresolved.

Smith is also currently free on a $50,000 bond in Charleston, South Carolina in relation to a November 2019 arrest on suspicion of firing a weapon into an occupied vehicle, court records show. An indictment in that case was handed down on March 16, 2020, just before COVID-19 paralyzed the courts, and the docket shows no further action on the case.

Smith allegedly stabbed Brianna Kupfer last week at the Croft House furniture store in Hancock Park where she worked while studying design at UCLA. The upscale neighborhood was considered relatively safe until recently.

Prior to the stabbing, Kupfer texted a friend saying she got a “bad vibe” from the man who entered the store. The friend did not immediately see the text message at the time.

Security footage from a 7-Eleven at Beverly and Wilshire boulevards allegedly recorded the killer, who was wearing an N95 mask, 30 minutes after the Kupfer’s murder. Speaking with Fox News earlier this week, Brianna’s father, Todd Kupfer, blamed politicians for his daughter’s murder.

“Crime is truly spiking, and we have a lot of criminals on the streets that shouldn’t be...

#candaceowens

Biden to send 400M high-quality masks to pharmacies and health centers from the National Strategic Reserve he and Obama left empty...

Hmmmm, I wonder how it magically got filled up again, who could have done it... hmm, I wonder who could it have been...

It looks like President Trump will have to fill it back up again once he wins his third term in 2024...

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #186

European presidential candidate found guilty of hate speech for calling migrant children ‘murderers’ and ‘rapists’

Right-wing French presidential candidate Éric Zemmour was convicted on Monday on charges of inciting racial hatred, The New York Times reported.

Zemmour was convicted over his comments about unaccompanied migrant children, the NYT reported. He had said “they have nothing to do here. They are thieves, they are murderers, they are rapists, that’s all they are.”

The comments were made in September 2020, after Zemmour was asked a question about a knife attack by a young Pakistani immigrant, BBC News reported. He was fined $11,400 by a Paris criminal court, but his lawyers said he would appeal the decision.

In a statement announcing his intention to appeal the verdict, Zemmour accused the court of issuing an “ideological and stupid” ruling that was against his “free spirit,” the NYT reported.

“We want the end of this system that tightens the noose around freedom of expression and democratic debate a bit more each day,” Zemmour said. The television personality turned-politician has repeatedly violated French laws targeting defamation or acts provoking hatred or violence on the basis of race, religion and other factors, the NYT reported.

He was similarly convicted in 2011 for suggesting that the majority of criminals in France were “Black and Arab” and that employers “have the right” to decline to employ those groups, the NYT reported. In 2016, Zemmour was convicted for alleging France was being invaded by Muslims, whom he accused of supporting jihadist terrorists.

Zemmour’s popularity surged in the polls before he even announced his presidential bid, but he has struggled to maintain this momentum, the NYT reported. He is currently polling in fourth place and has yet to receive the official backing of at least 500 elected representatives, a requirement to appear on...

New video analysis claims that Ashli Babbitt – the U.S. veteran executed by Capitol Police officer Michael Byrd – was attempting to diffuse the situations between rioters destroying the doors leading to the Speaker’s Lobby at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th and the police guarding them. Babbitt even went so far as to step between one of the men around her and the police, before being executed on government property.

The claims run contrary to the corporate media narrative of Babbitt and the events of January 6th, including recent smears against her character on the one year anniversary of the FBI-linked riot.

News outlets have consistently portrayed Babbitt as a violent “insurrectionist” who was trying to break through the door. Instead, we’re told that after a long time being trapped in a small area with increasingly violent conflict around her, she sought an exit through the window.

The video, which can be viewed in full here, does show Babbitt shouting, “It’s our house, we’re allowed to be here,” at officers, but also appearing to try to stop others from breaking through the doors. In the video, she visible winces as Alam leaned to break the window with his right hand.

Babbitt’s husband Aaron said his wife was shouting “Stop! No! Don’t! Wait!” Babbitt’s expression in the video is one of shock.

Three police officers then appear to move away from the Speaker’s Lobby doors, as a U.S. Capitol Police Containment Emergency Response Team (CERT) came up the stairs. They were responding to an erroneous police radio report of shots fired.

Aaron Babbitt said that his wife was in fear for her life, which is why she tried to climb through the window to escape the commotion. Babbitt was shot and killed by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd as she tried to climb through the broken window. At no point did she pose an active threat to any of the officers including Byrd, who recently admitted he could not see if she was armed, and had no cause to believe she was a threat to him.

“The only way we’d ever know why Ashli felt the window was the only way out is if she had been detained by one of the countless police officers that abandoned their post in front of those doors,” Babbitt said. “That did not happen. She was murdered and robbed of the chance to tell her side of the story.”

“The reality of it is, Ashli wasn’t a violent person. She was a good person, but [the media] have demonized her to become this domestic terrorist that she never has been. She served her country for 14 years. That’s just insane to me that they can actually get away with pushing this narrative,” said Tayler Hansen, a journalist who was next to Babbitt when she was murdered, “They’ve done that by suppressing first-hand witnesses like me.”

Hansen said that he was right behind Babbitt in a hallway on the second floor of the Capitol around 2:40 PM Jan. 6th. He followed her as she turned down a random hallway, that just so happened to lead to the Speaker’s Lobby.

By the time Babbitt was at the door, multiple people, including Hansen, had followed her. A paid BLM/ANTIFA activist was also with Hansen, who subsequently sold the footage of Babbitt’s murder to CNN and NBC.

“People just kind of emerged on the door. By that time, she was stuck in the corner. She was literally trapped there.” Hansen said.

Babbitt retired from the US Air Force as a military police officer. She took time to chat with three officers from the U.S. Capitol Police and...